Babes in the Woods

Here's what we knew about camping prior to this week:
You find a campsite, pitch a tent, go out for supper, come back and sleep in the tent.

Cruising along Highway 395 in Eastern Washington, in our beautiful gray Acura TL, with a new tent and a blow up mattress tucked into the golf bag sized trunk made us feel pretty smug. If we can live in a small space, we should be able to camp out of a small car, right? We are clever people - we've been around. We pull into the most serene campground at Kettle River in Eastern Washington; it is mid-week, the campground has no amenities and is nearly deserted. This fabulous is located on an estuary of the Columbia river; all that seems to exist are tall lodgepole pines standing silent in the windless afternoon, waterfowl gliding on a glassy lake and an endless view up the river valley. It is perfect. We step out of the car and take a deep breath of hot pine scented air. We look at each other and smile.

We quickly assemble the new tent; it is so lightweight it can be held in one hand, and has neat, round, zippered entrances through which the air and starlight can pass, but bugs can not. We get busy unloading our books and personal things and very quickly notice that we have nothing to wash with. No problem, we can dip in the lake and drip dry, it is a hot day.

After our return from a surprisingly great supper at Barney's, a restaurant in the fork in the road near Kettle Falls, WA., we settled into an affable game of scrabble; however, we had brought beer in bottles and didn't have an opener. The temperature had cooled, so now there were mosquitoes coming at us from everywhere. We beat a hasty retreat to the tiny tent. When it came time to settle into bed we became aware of an ominous slow hiss coming from the mattress. Dave tried and tried to screw the water bottle type cap onto the opening but there was no staunching the flow. 'Great', he muttered, 'technology failure...now we have to buy a new mattress'. Sometime in the night we woke up to the fact that we were lying unprotected on the hard, hard ground. We had put all our blankets underneath us, so now we were cold, as well; but being together in one unit there was the benefit of snuggling. There was also one (1) mosquito which had sneaked in with us and which would not stop whining around our vulnerable ears. In spite of it all we managed a decent night' sleep, and as we were packing up the next morning, getting ready to throw the mattress in the dumpster, guess what I found?! A rubber plug thingy in the trunk of the car.

What we now know about camping could fill the proverbial book, but includes the following:
There are lots of bugs.
It would be good to have something to make fire with, carry water with, wash with, sit on, eat, and use to see in the dark.
A closer look at technology failure could uncover user failure and it could require the use of 'something to see in the dark with'.
A beer opener is crucial.